Day 5 and Late Start This Week

Staff,

On Tuesday, during your Day 5 meetings, I'll review with you our SMARTgoals for the 18-19 school year, and how your SLOs can help support our overall building goals. Please bring to these Day 5 meetings your ELA curriculum guides because I will be giving you copies of your grade level MAP continums which we will be aligning to the ELA curriculum guides on Thursday.

On Thursday, we will have a staff meeting at 8:05am in the media center to get you ready for your SLO writing. If you have time prior to Thursday, please log into mylearningplan through class link and review your strengths and areas for growth within the standards/indicators from last year's professional goal setting plan found in your 17-18 evaluation folder.



 Later on Thursday, you'll be updating your reflections within the professional goal setting plan for 18-19. You'll also have time on this day to dig into the MAP continuum to align concepts and skills to your grade level's ELA priority standards. 

Won't You Be My Neighbor

Staff,

This past Friday, it was the 51st anniversary of Mr. Fred Rogers recording the first episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In honor of this day, Google shared the following Doodle on their search engine (see below). The Doodle, "aims to be a reminder of the nurturing, caring and whimsy that made the show feel like a television visit between Mister Rogers and his young viewers." I found it the perfect introduction to our movie night on Tuesday. Again we will start at 4:00 pm in Mrs. Filarsky's room.

On Monday, During your Day 5 common planning time, continue your ELA work using the four questions PLC document you started last week during our staff meeting. Again please focus on a ELA priority standard you want every child to meet.

At our Tuesday staff meeting, we'll check in to see how the first two Love and Logic Classroom strategies are going:  Greetings and Neutralizing Arguing. Chris will then introduce the next one:  Delayed Consequences. Here's the agenda for the staff meeting. Please also bring your EDM4 Manual so you can do some planning during the second half of the meeting.

PLC Staff Meeting

Staff,

At our staff meeting, we will start with some celebrations from the first week. Be thinking of anything you might want to share from the following categories: student learning, collaborating with colleagues or results of our work.

The Love and Logic Classroom strategy to be rolled out on Tuesday is neutralizing arguments. Our ELA PLC agenda item will be focused around digging into the ELA curriculum guide to understand how the priority standards are infused into these revised documents.  Teams can also work on deciding which priority standard they'll plan, teach and assess together. I have linked the District essential document google folder.  Within your grade level's folder, you'll find the table of contents, it includes a link to the deconstructed priority standards which are helpful for your planning too. Here's a link to the agenda for Tuesday. Hardcopies will be at your table.

On Wednesday, during your Day 2 curriculum common planning with Teaching and Learning, they will be going over report card changes now that we also have priority standards for ELA. These meetings will be held in our conference room.

Over the weekend, I came across this Edutopia article regarding greeting students at the door. It highlights the benefits for both students and teachers. I found it reinforcing of the greetings and goodbyes we've collectively committed to this year.

Welcome Back

Staff,

I am looking forward to a great first week of school with you and your students. On Tuesday we have our staff meeting at 8:05am to review the NH staff guide. I'll have some quiz questions to highlight important information found within it. Staff are welcome to come a little early on Tuesday (7:30am) to help us get our flags displayed along the front sidewalk. Our Patriot Day program will start at 2:50pm by the flagpole.

On Thursday, September 13th we will have our PBIS stations. Please refer to your PBIS binder for your station schedule. Then Friday is our first PLC common planning time. Your work will be focused in digging into the new ELA Curriculum Maps. 

Final Week

Staff,

Thank you for all you've done to make the 17-18 school year a successful one for our students. On Monday the petting zoo will be here from 10:00am-1:00pm. K-3 teachers have signed up for times, but there are some openings if intermediate grade levels want to try to view. Here's the schedule with the times still available. 

Our last day of school at a glance.

9:00 am - All School Meeting

10:30 am - Yearbook Signing

2:10 - 2:40 pm - Specialists covering afternoon recess for teachers.

2:45 pm - Kickball

No Specials

Finally, starting at 9:00am on Monday, certified staff can draw times in the office for checkout on Wednesday. Teachers on cycle for evaluation, who have not reviewed their end of year SLO with me, will need to do this on checkout day. Teachers not on cycle for evaluation will have their SLOs finalized after Wednesday. Please double check that you have submitted both your PPG and end of year SLO.

Last Full Week of School Updates

Staff,

We are sprinting toward the end of the year with so much to do in the next week and two days. A reminder to have your end of year SLO and PPG submitted to me by 11:59pm on Monday, May 14th. 

Other events happening this week are the following:

• Monday, May 14th:  5th Grade Track and Field at EP Rock
• Tuesday, May 15th:  4th Grade Track and Field at EP Rock
• Wednesday, May 16th;  4th Grade Field Trip to Warner Nature Center
• Thursday, May 17th:  K-3 Track and Field Day, Fun Run and First Grade Field Trip to Como Zoo
• Friday, May 18th:  Second Grade Field Trip to the MN Zoo and  5th Grade Farewell at 2:45pm

Finally here's an update on a couple of our end of year building SMARTgoal indicators. As a building, we met one of our big reading achievement goals:  55% of K-5 NH students will be above the 60 percentile on MAP (College and Career Readiness). As a building, 56% of K-5 NH students scored above the 60 percentile on the reading MAP (College and Career Readiness). Also regarding reading MAP growth, we had above average results spring 17-spring 18 for our 1st-5th graders. MAP now combines the percentage of students who met their projected RIT and percentage of projected growth met for an overall percentile called the median conditional growth percentile: as a building our students had above average growth 57% (last line of the report below). I wanted to share with you some great achievement and growth news based on your hardwork and the hardwork of your students. Bravo!

Staff Meeting, Late Start and Upcoming Events

Staff,

At our staff meeting on Tuesday, we will watch a video of author Sherry Turkle Alone Together. I had an opporutnity to hear her this past summer. Her ideas were powerful regarding the impact of technology/social media, not only on our children, but also on ourselves. As we get close to summer vacation, her message may assist you, and those of you who have school age children, to find a healthy balance with technology use. Here's an interview with Sherry Turkle, in case some of you would like to know more about her ideas before Tuesday:  NPR Interview.  Here's also another NPR article regarding Lonely Americans. 

On Tuesday, we'll also review the school events occurring during our last three weeks of school. A reminder that our last late start is this Thursday. This time is set aside for you to work on your SLOs and PPGs. Teachers and specialists here is the link regarding your work locations on Thursday:  May 3rd Late Start.

For your end of year SLO, you'll reflect on and answer these three questions:

• Summarize the end-of-interval status of your goal and the process you used to support the growth of your target population.

• Were there environmental or contextual implications that impacted the results of your SLO? If so, please explain:

• Lessons learned:

For your PPG you'll reflect on this statement:

• Evidence of Progress Toward Professional Practice Goal:

Teaching and Learning Updates and Late Start

Staff,

     At our Tuesday staff meeting, Teaching and Learning staff will be presenting on ELA and math. Some of the topics will include ELA priority standards, the three year plan for ELA and new information on the math profiles of progress.

     During the Tuesday late start, regular education staff will be meeting with me to either fill out the online class placement surveys for their students (K-4) or filling out the AIM sheets for middle school placement (5th grade teachers). We will start promptly in the media center at 8:05 am. Here's a link to the guide that will help you with the online class placement forms. Before Thursday I will be emailing out the access to this form to classroom teachers. After I do, I will send a follow up email because the email has been coming through to teachers in their spam.

     Most special education staff will be meeting with Fafani at ASC during the late start for training on the Child Outcome Summary Form that is required by DPI. 

Spelling Fidelity

Staff,

At our Tuesday staff meeting, prior to the suicide prevention presentation, we'll spend some time on spelling fidelity, one of our reading foundational skills SMARTgoal targets:  100% of teachers will utilize the spelling curriculum with fidelity. Most SMART Team members have already been observed teaching spelling using the form below. During the months of March and April, the rest of classroom teachers will be observed to assess where we are at with our implementation of our spelling curriculum. On Tuesday, I'll also share some of the data we've already collected from the observations done with SMART Team members.

Documentation Questions

Staff,

Last week I shared with you some of our Educator Effectiveness resources. For those of you on cycle and working on your reflections, I recommend using the mylearningplan questions found at the top of your documentation log to guide your reflections. I find them user friendly and easy to follow. As a reminder, our staff meeting on Tuesday will focus on updating classroom supply lists and reviewing artifacts and documentation log writing. Please bring your supply lists to revise.

Artifact Reflection Prompts (MLP Documentation Log)

1.  Describe how this artifact provides evidence for this standard.

2.  Describe how this artifact impacted your professional practice and knowledge.

3.  Detail the impact on student learning this artifact demonstrates